CROSS-NATIONAL COMPARISONS OF THE LABOUR FORCE PARTICIPATION OF WOMEN MARRIED TO UNEMPLOYED MEN

This paper estimates a cross-sectional model of married women's labour force participation for five countries: Britain, Denmark, the USA, Sweden, and Ireland, using data from the 1980s. The model includes a linearised budget constraint and an instrumented wage variable. Dummy variables were entered for the benefit regimes which unemployed husbands were experiencing. The five countries between them had a range of means tested and other benefit regimes for unemployed men. The results suggest that non-means tested regimes do not affect wives' participation whereas means tested regimes all lower wives participation rates, given their characteristics.